NHL: Lockout lifted, league constructs 50-game schedule

The season that will commence more than three months late began in earnest for the Flyers early Sunday morning with a buzz.

At approximately 5:30, a series of sleeping Flyers across North America may or may not have heard their vibrating smart phones, ringing the news from self-appointed communications director Scott Hartnell: “Deal done, boys!”

Just minutes before then, an usually early riser in Philadelphia celebrating his 80th birthday rubbed his eyes and checked his phone for messages.

“There it was,” Ed Snider said, “The message saying it was over.”

So it was at that crack of dawn hour that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had directed messages be sent to Snider and his fellow league owners informing them a tentative agreement had been reached with the players union in New York, and only after a 16-hour marathon session capping three straight days of bargaining, fueled by a seemingly tireless mediator in Scot Beckenbaugh.

Thus, hockey’s long, National League nightmare - a lockout of its players that lasted 113 days and burned away more than half the season schedule plus two of its marquee, revenue producing events - finally seems to have come to an end.

There remain a few formalities, such as ratification by the NHL Players Association membership and a majority nod of assent from the NHL Board of Governors; business that should be wrapped up at least by Wednesday. That might also be the day the Flyers officially welcome everyone in for a training camp that may last all of one week.

For openers, however, this day of celebration sufficed. Ding-dong, the lockout’s dead.

Though the schedules for the regular season will take some time to confirm, it appears the league will try to construct a 50-game schedule, just as the NBA did when it came off its lockout a year ago. If that proves too complicated or if the ratification process is delayed, look for a 48-game season, as the NHL did in 1995 after league commissioner Gary Bettman’s first of three lockouts.

Either way, the season would be comprised of three and four games in alternating weeks for each team, carrying from about Jan. 15 - four months after the lockout began - through nearly the whole month of April, with a full load of playoffs through May and much of June.

The Winter Classic and All-Star Game festivities are cancelled and will remain that way.

“We’ve got to dot a lot of Is and cross a lot of Ts,” Bettman said shortly after announcing a tentative agreement had been reached. “There’s still a lot of work to be done, but the basic details of the agreement have been agreed upon.”

If the league does approve a 50-game schedule, look for the Flyers to begin on the road either Jan. 15 or 17, with their home opener possibly coming against Pittsburgh on national TV on Sat., Jan. 19. They would only play an intra-conference schedule, with perhaps with five games against each of the Atlantic Division teams, and the rest against the rest of the teams in the East.

“I’m not good at forecasting,” Snider said, “but I feel very strongly that our fans in Philadelphia are going to stick with us. We’ve had very few (season ticket) cancellations, and we feel like we’re in a very good shape and hopefully everybody is excited that we’re coming back.”

Players who were biding their time and trying to stay sharp by playing in Europe have travel details to work out, or injuries to mend. That would include Danny Briere, who has already returned from playing in Germany, but is recovering from a wrist injury suffered there. Also heading back would be Giroux, saying he’s completely over the neck injury (but not a concussion!) he suffered there.

Giroux should be ready for the start of this “training camp,” while Briere will likely be ready shortly after the shortened season starts.

Snider called the 113-day work stoppage, “very difficult, because you feel so helpless.

“But by the same token, you have to have faith in your leadership,” he added. “I have 100 percent belief in Gary Bettman, despite all the negative things that have been said about him. ... He’s the same guy that’s taken our league to the level it’s at now.”

And despite a negotiation process that went on far too long, and might still be dragging if it weren’t for the marathon sessions that Beckenbaugh carried on with the respective sides at different locations, Snider praised both Bettman and players union chief Donald Fehr for doing the best they could in representing their constituencies.

“He’s trying to help everyone in the league,” Snider said of Bettman. “He’s trying to help clubs that have (financial) troubles. ... I feel sorry for the guy, because I think he’s done an outstanding job. And at the same time I think Donald Fehr did an outstanding job for the players.”

The tentative agreement calls for a 10-year term, with an option for either side to re-open after eight years. The owners successfully bargained their share of hockey related revenues from 43 percent to a 50-50 split, with a $70.2 million salary cap (pro-rated down) in the first year, and $64.3 million in the second, several more million than the owners wished. The minimum payroll for teams would be $44 million.

Player contracts can only be for a maximum of seven years (no more Mike Richards kind of deals that go on half a lifetime), or eight if a team is re-signing its own free agent. Salaries can vary no more than 35 percent year to year.

Perhaps more importantly, there is a window for teams to lose up to two contracts before next year, the so-called amnesty clause that could loom large with a long-term, highly paid player like Ilya Bryzgalov or Briere after this season.

But as for now, Kimmo Timonen summed it up in an interview with the Associated Press:

“I’m ready to play,” the Flyers defenseman said. “It’s been a long four months.”